Years ago, when I first started this business which is quickly coming up on its five year anniversary, I signed up for an insane amount of email lists.
My thought process was solid:
I would join my ideal client’s list so I had more “ammo” when we hopped on a call. I could offer them specific insights and areas of opportunity from the experience of being a subscriber on their list.
But I signed up for these email newsletters with my main-at-the-time email address. And my inbox is still inundated with some of the worst examples of email copywriting that my poor eyes have ever had to witness. My ideal clients aren’t professional copywriters, so you can imagine how bad some of these emails are.
Since I don’t believe in deleting emails, I have over 92k unopened emails.
And there’s one particular “type” of email which comes from a particular person’s list that I finally had to unsubscribe from—after several years of this guy sending the same. exact. subject. line.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Now, this guy hasn’t always sent the same exact subject line. This trend started in 2022. And while he will very occasionally mix it up, the vast majority of his subject lines start with the same exact words:
“Nutritionist helps client”
Check it out yourself - the below screenshot includes over a year of the past emails he’s sent:
Notice anything similar?
While subject lines aren’t nearly as important as the person sending it… a topic I’ve expanded on several times before, so I’ll spare you from it here… I demand to know who is telling this guy to send the same. exact. subject. lines. every. time.
Which guru told this sucker that his subject lines should be the same exact thing every time?
And why on earth did he believe whichever guru told him this lie?
I don’t know, but I have a suspicion (besides the obvious one of how creatively bankrupt this guy is).
Y’see, I opened a couple of these emails after I took the screenshot:
It’s all user-generated content (or UGC as the gurus today call it).
There’s nothing wrong with UGC: It demonstrates proof in a very real way that’s not as easy to doctor as other forms of social proof. Proof, as Gary Bencivenga (who is regarded as the world’s best living copywriter) would say, is the most potent persuasion trick in your toolbox. And if you were to read Gary’s infamous “Kurobuta Ham” sales letter, you would see Gary pull out all stops for adding proof (without relying on the laziness of UGC, doctoring reviews, or even so much as having reviews from other people who have tasted this “Kurobuta Ham”).
But today, gurus put social proof, especially UGC—which is nothing more than a very specific type of social proof—on a pedestal. And with any tactic put on a pedestal by gurus, it’s ripe for laziness, creative bankruptness, and biz owners overinflating its purpose at the expense of strategy.
Hear me once and hear me henceforth:
An overreliance on tactics (which change with the wind) at the expense of strategy is a good way to send your biz to an early grave.
For no other reason than that tactics change. Constantly.
Let alone the laziness that’s involved with sending 12 emails over the course of more than a year where the subject line begins with the same exact words:
“Nutritionist helps client”
There’s no way this guy is sending profitable emails. Nor entertaining emails. Nor does he have a healthy and engaged list.
He committed the ultimate copywriting and business building sin:
Kneeling at the altar of tactics.
Yes, UGC can be a good strategy.
But when you try the same old tactics again and again and again, then, well, you bore your audience to death. And that’s on you, bucko.
Do you think that Mr Beast would’ve become the most subscribed YouTuber in history if he used the same video idea and title for every single one of his videos?
Or that Ben Settle would’ve built multiple 7-figure businesses if he began each subject line with “Copywriter helps client [XYZ result]”?
Or that my clients would be as successful as they are if I decided to get lazy and start every single email with the same exact tired tactic?
The answer should be obvious.
But here’s the sliver of hope if you’re making a similar mistake with your emails:
You’re but one reply away from changing that.
So, go head, and hit reply right meow.
John
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